[msmagnolia]

I have a question, especially for those of you with Vet knowledge, but would be interested to hear from anyone. Our 2 babies are scheduled to have their spays tomorrow. They are 6 months. My vet's policy is that the dogs stay overnight. There will be no one at the office from 5:30PM until 7:30AM. I am welcome to come and get them at 9:00AM after they have checked them out. When I questioned this they said that they will keep them in a small cage so that they can't move around. I totally understand this but asked if they wouldn't be better off at home where they can be monitored, then all alone at the Vet's office. I like these people and they know me. They told me that truly the dogs would do fine and it would be worse on me than on them. Well, my husband is going to drop them off tomorrow morning on his way to his office and he didn't realize they were staying overnight. When I told him about the 14 hours unattended he said absolutely not! So he'll call and tell them tomorrow morning that we'll either let them spay but we'll be picking them up tomorrow afternoon, or we'll find a new vet. He feels that 14 hours is too long for the dogs to be alone post anesthesia. (My husband is an Oral Surgeon, so he knows pretty much about human anesthesia.)

Does anyone else have any thoughts, or are we being too freaky here? This is kind of beside the point, but I have 2 dogs that together represent a lot of money. We either want them attended there, or attended here. I would appreciate some advice from you, or at least a concensus of what others have experienced.
Susan

 

[Brinkley & Neyland's Mom]

Wow! 14 hours unattended is a long time. They won't check in on them in the meantime?

Yuck! I never even leave Brink alone that long when he is fine and dandy!

Mine is definitely not vet knowledge...ha ha..but my advice is...
I say go with your gut. Don't do something you don't feel comfortable with. I know I took Brinkley home the same day-but he is male. I took my cats home the same day after their spays too.

Good luck!

 

[Chelsey]

Our vet is gonna do the same thing so we will pick her up after and bring chelsey back in the morning. I can't leave her there by herself. I can hardly bring myself to take her in.

 

[lani]

I agree with tlunn. Don't do something you don't feel comfortable with. I wouldn't want to leave my baby alone unless I absolutely HAVE TO.

 

[msmagnolia]

I've questioned my vet about this twice and they didn't even give me the option of picking up in the afternoon and bringing them back in the morning. I'd be glad to do that. Guess my husband will offer that as the option when he calls tomorrow morning and if they continue to say that that is their office policy then I'll start looking for a new vet. I really like these people, but I'm not so in love with them that I couldn't find another. I'm a lot more in love with my babies and want to make sure that they are OK and not lying in dog pee all night.

 

[Chelsey]

It hard to find a good vet. I hope your husband can work something out.
I'm trying to think of why they won't allow you to pick them up and bring them back.

 

[lani]

Good!!! Good luck finding a new vet!!!

Let us know how it went.

 

[Maltcrazy]

I'm not a vet or vet tech...but as a breeder, I agree with your hubby. --

I have always brought my furkids home right after any kind of surgery. My old vet, now retired, always told me that it is much easier on the furkids to wake up and recoup in a familiar place - HOME - and with their loved ones, rather than be in the clinic (a strange place) alone. Who better to care for them and/or know if something is wrong better than their mom? (and yes, this vet would let me take them home while just coming to)

I'm sure you will find as well, that you will be charged a good fee for the overnight stay even though noone is going to be there to check on them.

I've only ever left one girl at the clinic overnight (my new clinic at that) but it was a special situation where she was in critical condition (hooked up to IV's, etc) BUT someone did check in on her during the night. In that situation, she was better off there but for a spay or neuter, I see no reason for them not to go home. They are usually groggy anyways and will generally just want to sleep it off and when they are awake you, their mom, can comfort them and make them feel better

jmo

 

[ButterCloudandNoriko]

Just tell them that then. Both times I took my babies to get spayed they said that they had to stay. But I told them I feel safer if they were home with me so that I can monitor them and if anything goes wrong, I do have the emergency pet number and if I needed to take them in to the emergency center than I can. But if something happens during the 14 hrs and noone's there, I couldn't deal with this! Just tell them exactly that. They wont have a good reason to say no. But seriously keep them confined when you take them home. I hope everything goes well.

 

[ButterCloudandNoriko]

Originally posted by MomtwoMaltmuffins@Jan 19 2005, 12:23 AM
I am sure the bottom line is money if they want them to stay overnight. 
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[/QUOTE]
I went to 2 different vets to have my babies fixed. Neither one of them reduced their prices, but I didn't care.

 

[mee]

i called around 5 vets to find out price differences for Jong-ee's spay, but neither any of the 5 vets would tell me their price over the phone, they all said i had to come in their office and talk with the vet in person and yeah, plan to charge me for that i bet!

 

[Ladysmom]

Even when Lady was near death from complications from her diabetes 2 years ago, my vet unhooked her IV at the end of the day and let me bring her home with me at night since she would otherwise be unattended until the morning (although they do check on patients aorund 11:00 pm). My vet felt that despite her condition, she would do better at home, and if an emergency arose, I could get her to the emergency vet.

When are they doing the spaying? Unless they aren't doing it until the afternoon, I can't see why your girls couldn't come home when the vet office closes.

 

[Lilly521]

Your vet closes at 5:30? i know my vet is open a lot later than that (i have had appointments at 7) do they do kennel there? maybe thats why my vet is open so late they have a super nice kenneling place there that if i coudl ever get an appointment for i would feel pretty good pleaving sunny there (they book up months in advanced)

 

[msmagnolia]

They do the spaying around 11:00AM and say that they'll be finished no later than 1:00PM. I appreciate the fact that y'all don't think that we are complelely nuts about this. Our feeling was also that 14 hours is just too long unattended. We've got a call in to the vet's office and I'll let you know what happens. Thanks again.

 

[ButterCloudandNoriko]

It's ok

. Just me leaving the vet's office while they perform the surgery is hard for me. We are all in this with you. Take care.

 

[Deanne3899]

Good luck & let us know! I called for Xena's appt. yesterday & they wanted to keep Xena overnight next Thursday, but I requested no as she's already going through enough of an adjustment. The nurse called me back after speaking to the dr. & he said that was okay IF she was awake and okay and we could keep her calm. Fortunately b/c Xena is older, she is pretty calm, so I'll just watch t.v. on Friday & Saturday & Sunday while she sleeps on me!

& the crate, too.

14 hours is an awfully long time....
Deanne

 

[LexiAndNikkisMom]

I agree that is too long. Maybe see if you could reschedule for a day when they could do the spaying earlier in the morning. That way if you pick them up at 5:00 they should be would have been in recovery for like 7 hours.

 

[msmagnolia]

Good news. My husband spoke with the vet who has agreed to let them go home this afternoon, provided that we keep them kenneled. That is OK with us. They said that they wouldn't have let us take them home had my husband not been a healthcare professional. I just don't understand this policy. They do all of their surgery during lunch time 3 days a week. They never offered us any opportunity to take the dogs home until we threatened to cancel the surgery. I guess they've had problems in the past, but what I really think the problem is is that they don't want to be bothered at home when people panic and are worried about their animals. The reason I think that this is the problem is that the girl at the front desk and the doctor both alluded to the fact that they had to stop letting the spays go home because people called them during the night. WELL, let me tell you - my husband's practice has 4 surgeons and they each take call one week a month. During my husband's week he gets plenty of calls. But guess what? That's part of the territory. When people are paying you big bucks to take out wisdom teeth, and maybe they have no insurance and have paid cash up front, they deserve to be able to speak to a doctor. I can even understand the vet's feeling about this when it was only one guy in the office. Now that there are two of them, they should take some call and expect that they'll hear from their clients some of the time. And by the way, they only do 3 surgeries a day so it's not like they are going to have a million calls anyway. So I will have to think about this and consider whether this is the vet for us. OK, I'm done venting.

Now I sit and wait. They said they'd call if the blood work was a problem and then I would hear from them around 1:00 when the surgery was completed. I'll let you know. Thanks everyone!

 

[LexiAndNikkisMom]

That's great! This will be a lot harder on you than it is on them.

You can look forward to tonight and tomorrow. Major cuddle time. I ended laying in bed with Lexi. It was great.

 

[jmm]

The reason we require them to stay over night is that most clients will not crate the dog. It is essential that they are truly restricted and rest. Most clients will not be completely compliant with that. Many years ago the surgeon at our practice use to send them home the same day, but too many would be in pain the next day or have sutures out, etc. We require it to be pre-arranged with the vet to take them home the same day and most people are quite comfortable with our judgment so leave them overnight. Maybe a handful per year go home the same day.

The goal is not to monitor them constantly at night (though they are the first few hours after surgery), but to keep them confined and quiet.